Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem by Lauren Oliver
Published: March 5, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 391
Series: Delirium #3
Source: Bought
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

My Review: I was so nervous about starting Requiem because of all the mixed reviews I've seen for it. So many people were disappointed by it and I didn't want to be disappointed by it so I put off reading it for as long as I could. When I finally picked it up I finished it in a day. It definitely wasn't my favorite out of the series but I still really enjoyed it.

There will be a few spoilers for the first two books in the series so proceed with caution.

I forgot how easy it is to get lost in Lauren Oliver's writing. It's so beautiful that I almost finished the book in one sitting. I thought the alternating points of view would be kind of annoying since I was only interested in Lena at first but after reading a few chapters from Hana's POV I started to really enjoy it. I know that many readers really don't like Hana (and there's a good reason for that) but I actually really liked how she grew as a character.

My main problem with the book was Lena. I liked how she was no longer afraid of the disease and that she actually fought for freedom, but I couldn't stand her relationship with Julian. To me, Julian never had a chance once Alex came back at the very end of Pandemonium. But every single time something went wrong with Alex, Lena would go to Julian for comfort which isn't really fair to him since she was upset that she was no longer in a relationship with Alex.

I liked all of the other characters and I especially enjoyed the second half of the book. The first half of the book was mostly Lena and the group planning what they are going to do. The second half was them actually fighting for what they believe in so of course it's going to be more exciting.

There's a twist in this book, but if you've read the novella Hana then it isn't a twist. I haven't read the novella but someone told me what happened so I wasn't surprised by the twist, but that didn't bother me too much. The ending was left pretty open, but I actually liked that. I know many people were upset about the ending, but I like imagining what happens with Lena, Alex, Julian, and the others.